


skiptrace

by canondeath (bluelions)



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:53:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29728617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluelions/pseuds/canondeath
Summary: You don't get to choose when you time travel or when you return, but you already know that, and that is something that will remain true.Karl feels the pull of the Inbetween once more and leaves his lovers behind.
Relationships: Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs, Alexis | Quackity/Karl Jacobs/Sapnap, Alexis | Quackity/Sapnap, Karl Jacobs/Sapnap
Comments: 2
Kudos: 63





	skiptrace

**Author's Note:**

> this makes references to canon events and is post-l'manberg, but it is largely ambiguous about its place in the timeline!
> 
> i've just combined a handful of headcanons and the karlnapity angst i've been imagining and spit this out ..

“Why are you still awake?”

“I dunno. Why are you still awake?”

“It’s too early to sleep.”

Karl cracks open his eyes against the fading light seeping through their window. Peach and gold spill over their bodies, a gentle reminder that the day is not quite over. But they lie here, Quackity atop Karl, and turn in anyways.

“We haven’t slept since yesterday,” Quackity mumbles. His head is tucked beneath Karl’s chin, and he can feel his words more than he hears them. “We need to sleep.”

They spent the past twenty-four hours fooling around with their friends on the server. It was a non-stop train of shenanigans and laughter. Peacetime was difficult to accept when conflict had plagued them for so long. Maybe they needed this.

Karl’s body, while sleep-deprived, still buzzes with adrenaline even hours after they decided to call it quits, leaving his brain frazzled and floaty. His thoughts flit about like bugs in the night. If he lets them settle he can feel something deep inside him is being tugged at, gently but incessant, as if threatening to unravel him completely.

He takes a shuddering breath and grounds himself with Quackity’s weight.

Quackity shifts, and then his hand comes up to cover Karl’s eyes and slide them close. “You can do it,” he encourages as Karl laughs.

They manage a few minutes of dozed silence before Karl feels the urge to burst from the inside out. Sleep never comes easy. He slides a palm up Quackity’s back before brushing his fingers over his left wing.

“I fucking knew it,” Quackity grumbles.

“What? It soothes me.” Karl snickers. He coaxes his wing to unfurl with gentle fingers and marvels as yellow feathers turn to spun sugar in the setting sun. It's lovely. Quackity’s lovely as he curls into Karl and rests, the same as when he comes home from war with another scar.

“You're always touching my wings,” Quackity comments.

Karl hums in response. He probably has the feel memorized by now; the smooth feathers of the outer layers, the downy soft of the feathers close to his body, the thin bones running through.

“You're always so… gentle, too,” he adds softer.

Karl snorts. “That's because you never let Sapnap touch your wings. You think he'll accidentally break them.”

“Am I wrong? I'm already practically flightless!” It's a joke, but the image of Quackity’s right wing practically torn from his body flashes violently in his mind. Karl’s hand falters in their movements before resuming. “Where the hell is he, anyway?”

“I don't know,” Karl whispers. He feels the phantom pull inside once more. “Let's just sleep. He'll wake us up when he comes back.”

The sun finally dips below the horizon, and Quackity has fallen asleep to the rhythm of Karl’s hand. Karl opens his eyes once more, this time to pitch black, and gently tucks his wing back in. He smooths his palm over one last time.

Easing out from beneath Quackity takes excruciatingly long. Thankfully, he’s a relatively heavy sleeper and doesn’t notice as Karl slips out of the house.

He takes a sharp breath of cold, still air, fills his lungs until it hurts. The server is quiet now, but his ears are ringing. The cocoon of warmth he shared with Quackity has turned into a scratching sensation along his arms, his neck, his chest; what was once a playful pull is quickly turning into a hungry grab.

Karl takes off immediately, and the pain begins to subside.

-

Sapnap was supposed to return home with Karl and Quackity much earlier, but he ended up getting caught up with Dream and then George. After the fallout things have been different; tense, awkward, forced. Sapnap finds himself in the middle of things all the time.

Lanterns guide his weary body forward. Something flashes out of the corner of his eye, bright and colorful. Sapnap snaps his head in its direction and mutters to himself, “Karl?”

He picks his way through the L’Manberg ruins at a reasonable distance. Karl hurries through the night, not quite like he’s being chased but rather as if he were late to some appointment. Unsurprised, he watches him disappear into his library.

Sapnap stops just at the entrance and rests a hand on the doorframe. It’s nothing out of the ordinary for Karl to be in his own library, and he does struggle to sleep sometimes. He trusts Karl, he’s just curious, confused. His body tilts, ready to leave and join Quackity at home, but then his ears pick up a strange sound. It sounds like a voice, no, multiple voices, an eerie chorus singing and then fading away as soon as it began.

Only the obsidian skygrid sees Sapnap enter the library.

It’s dimly lit by lanterns and empty. Sapnap’s brow furrows. The wood creaks beneath his boots as he steps into the center of the room. He keeps quiet, eyes darting around the room for clues, before he hears it again coming from the far bookshelf.

Sapnap approaches and runs his hand down the spines of several outdated books. He removes the blocks. Another room greets him. His breath hitches.

“Karl?” he calls hesitantly. Nobody answers, so he steps in and closes the gap back up. There are posters and books he doesn’t look at, far more interested in finding Karl himself. Sapnap ignores the pit opening up in his stomach and heads down the ladder.

It feels strangely sterile in this cave the same way Dream’s smile doesn’t quite warm anymore, or the same way George’s rare visits end too politely. Sapnap feels trapped. He doesn’t really want to know what’s at the end of this tunnel, but there’s only a world of hurt waiting for him on the surface.

Sapnap decides to follow the torches, stepping to the beat of his pounding heart, until ghostly light begins to fill the cavern. He keeps going and going, swimming through the pale, and then he finds him. He stands before a strange portal, and he is nothing like the Karl he knows.

“Karl,” he starts, but his voice peters out when he whips around.

Karl’s kaleidoscope coat has been traded for a white cloak. It’s torn around the hem, laced with thin gold chains, and tied around his neck with a glowing emerald clasp. His trousers are white, and when Karl covers his mouth in shock, he notices his hands and wrists are wrapped in white bandage as well. Sapnap has never seen Karl so devoid of color. Even his feet are pale and bare against the stone.

All of that is nothing in comparison to the enormous wings protruding from behind Karl; wide, angelic, shimmering with iridescence in the low light. Sapnap’s first shameful thought is that they are nothing like Quackity’s.

Karl’s face is pinched with horror. “Sapnap,” he croaks, “why are you here?”

“I-I followed you,” Sapnap answers. “I was on my way home.”

“Oh.” Karl seems to deflate at that and looks away.

“Karl, what’s happening?”

“I can’t tell you,” Karl snaps, but he looks apologetic. “I have to leave again.”

Sapnap takes one shaky step forward, and Karl all but rushes to embrace him in a tight hug. He feels a mix of bitter, hot anger bubble inside him, but he’s too tired. He’s exhausted and confused, and all he can do is let Karl hold him as tears prick the corners of his eyes. His arms are too heavy to lift and return the hug.

“Sapnap, I promise I’ll tell you when I can. I’ll tell you and Quackity everything, but right now I can’t. I wouldn’t keep secrets if they wouldn’t hurt you,” he explains in a hushed voice. Karl starts to continue but he crumples inward, pressing a hand to his chest with a loud gasp.

“Karl? Karl what’s wrong?” Sapnap cries. He grips Karl’s shoulders to keep him upright as best he can. Fear strikes Sapnap, a thousand thoughts and worries extinguishing his rage in one singular blow. Karl lets out a pained grunt and grabs at Sapnap’s biceps before planting his forehead against his chest. “Karl?”

In a white flash, Karl’s wings spread and curl around them like a shield. Sapnap gazes up at the sight with his mouth slightly open. It should be dark, but his feathers reflect the light emanating from Karl’s green clasp and illuminate their faces. Cradled here in this warm, floaty haven, Sapnap feels protected.

Karl yanks his head back in place before slamming their foreheads together. Sapnap yelps, his skin stinging, but Karl looks like he’s becoming more and more strained by the second. “Sapnap, listen to me,” he hisses. “You can’t tell anybody about this. Nobody. Not Dream, not George, and not Quackity.”

“Why not? What about you? What’s happening?” Sapnap urges.

“I’ll be fine, okay? Just promise me you won’t say anything. This library, this place, can’t be exposed, and you can’t tell anybody about me. Promise?”

“I promise…”

He slides a hand around the back of Sapnap’s neck and brushes their lips together.

“I’m so sorry to give you one more burden, Sapnap,” he murmurs. “Forget this if you can, okay?”

Sapnap watches a sad smile soften his face. No war or detonation has ever marred his face in such destruction. Sapnap could almost believe him.

“I won’t,” Sapnap says stubbornly, and Karl laughs.

“Yeah, I should know better,” he hums. “I have to go now.”

Karl unfurls his wings and plunges them back into the sickly white light emanating from the portal. He looks back once to catch Sapnap’s small wave, and then he’s gone. The portal dims until it finally breaks, and Sapnap can see through to the deadend of the tunnel.

Numbness takes over Sapnap’s body. How many hours has he been awake? How many of those hours were worth living?

His eyes drift down and notice something on the ground. Sapnap picks up a single white feather. He carries it the whole way home.

-

“Where the hell have you been? And where the hell is Karl?” Quackity yells at Sapnap the moment he comes home. He woke up alone an hour ago and stayed in case someone came back. Normally, he doesn’t worry about their whereabouts, but his body refused to sleep in Karl’s absence.

Strangely, Sapnap doesn’t say anything. He sets his axe down, unbuckles his bow, shoves his boots off, and quickly crushes Quackity in a hug. Something is wrong.

“Sapnap?” he asks quietly, stroking his back. “Talk to me, Sap.”

“He left again.” His voice is hollow like someone carved out his heart. “I don’t know where he went or when he’s coming back.”

“Oh.”

Quackity feels like there’s something more that Sapnap is unwilling to disclose. Whatever it is won’t be coming out tonight. He could ask about Dream or George and how that whole ordeal went, but he reasons Sapnap’s in no shape to speak about that either. So he holds Sapnap in the single sliver of moonlight the crescent allows and soothes his trembling.

He tenses at Sapnap’s first touch of his wing. He doesn’t mean to, and he knows Sapnap felt it by the way his hand hovers. “It’s fine,” Quackity mumbles against his shoulder.

Sapnap doesn’t really touch him like that, not after the incident with Techno; not the wings, not the side of his face turned silvery scar. He’s careful, though. His tough and callused hands smooth gently over his feathers in such a familiar rhythm, he wonders if Karl learned it from Sapnap or the other way around.

Quackity melts into Sapnap’s arms and tucks his face into his neck. He unfurls his wing to its full span. His fingers follow along the bone, and then he says, “You’re kinda small.”

“Man, what the hell.”

Sapnap manages a soft laugh. Good.

For a few moments, they take comfort in each other’s warmth. There is somebody missing along with words and feelings and stories that Quackity has no strength to find. Tomorrow, he can lament another disappearance of their lover. Tomorrow, he can tend to the wounds Sapnap brings home.

He leads them to bed when their eyes begin to droop.

Quackity wakes in the morning to a brilliantly white feather tucked into his left wing.

**Author's Note:**

> this was largely an excuse to write quackity and karl with wings
> 
> thanks for reading! comments and kudos are appreciated :)
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@ga1eforce](https://twitter.com/ga1eforce)


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